Battleroar

Battleroar hail from Greece playing classic traditional metal paying homage to the greats like Manilla Road or Omen but where those bands certainly excel at their style they helped to mold, Battleroar seem to simply play the traditional style with little originality and with little straying out of the ordinary or even being special. Honestly, I can see how a lot of people would enjoy this; epic themes, some songs actually kick ass and the crunchy guitars that make for what traditional metal should be. But along with this are many problems and things that bring down this album, that outweigh the good.

The self-titled debut starts off with a rather boring long song that slowly works its way up to the point of going, then still meanders along with pointless parts. Fortunately the second song, Victorious Path is an entertaining faster tempoed song that features some nice bass action and a catchy sing along chorus, which I feel Battleroar pull off well. While the faster parts, with the galloping crunchy riffs that go with the theme perfectly seem to make you forget about the dull opener, the album doesn't finish off with a bang. The guitars being the best part of Battleroar are fortunately the main focus of a lot of this song, with riffing that sticks out. Often though, the terrible vocals mark out everything else; Marco Congoreggi has a horrible voice, maybe it is a thick accent or really just bad at vocal control but his high notes are painful as well as the passages of long singing, especially during the chorus of Megaloman where he tries to hit a real high note but fails miserably.

I mentioned some nice bass work earlier, which is another good thing that works well in traditional metal. Battleroar's bassist has some highlights early on even pulling some fast parts. The drums here are absolutely nothing special at all, I'd like for a better drummer to fit in well. Maybe it's the horrid production of the album that pulls down everything in the end, but the guitar tone and bass tone seems to work fine but I suppose the drums didn't make the cut and while they aren't as bad as the vocals they could be better I think.

Battleroar starts of poorly I think on this debut but pick up in the middle of the album then drag off even later with the snooze fest that is Berzerker. Some parts in some songs are just plain boring while in the middle will be a kickass solo or brilliant riffing out of nowhere (Almuric) but will otherwise be boring. There was a distinct part in one song where it started off slow then built up into some great riffing and I started headbanging then it just stopped and turned acoustic and soft and I was pissed, they needed to take advantage of some situations when they didn't. While I think overall, this is a mediocre release that could have been great if a new vocalist was brought in and kept more of the moments of faster tempoed songs instead of trying to go for some atmospheric epic masterpiece. This has some epic moments, but I'd rather have a traditional metal album over this failed attempt at epic traditional metal. Still, this has some rather enjoyable songs such as Victorious Path, Egyptian Doom, and Morituri Te Salutant.

Battleroar is a band with quite a name in their homeland, Greece. They have opened for great names such as Manilla Road and are known for their killer live performances.

In their debut CD they play epic metal in the veins of Omen, Brocas Helm and Manilla Road. Do not expect much originality here. The members are worshiping their influences and their music is full of 80s cliches, although not sounding outdated due to the good production.

The two guitarists Kostas Tzortzis and Manolis Karazeris manage with their riffs and solos to capture the epic feeling, necessary for a release of this kind. They may not be the most technical guitarists out there, but they are adequate enough and they can capture the listener's attention (and admiration sometimes) with the epic atmosphere their guitar work creates in the whole album. The vocalist, the Italian Marko Concoreggi is not something special but he does not suffer the usual pronunciation problem that most European Epic Metal bands have. The rhythm section is the typical epic one, steady rhythm in the drums and a bass that is completing the guitar sound here and there.

All of the songs of the album are more or less of equal quality. The opening track, Swordbrothers starts with a keyboard intro, then a drum solo, until guitars kick in transforming it to a pure metal holocaust. The backing vocals in the chorus (anyone talked about cliches?:P) are giving it the necassary atmosphere to fit perfectly with the epic lyrics. Next comes Victorious Path, a catchy up-tempo, best enjoyed with lots of headbanging. Egyptian Doom is a long epic masterpiece with sharp riff and vocals. The verses on the guitar make it a real battle hymn. In the same style is Mourning Sword, talking about Stormbringer, the sword of Moorcock's famous hero Elric. Almuric comes next with its marvellous guitarwork and the best riff of the album. Battleroar is another uptempo song, suitable for live appeareances (they used to close their live set with this killer). Next comes Morituri te Salutant, which I consider the weaker moment of the album,however the songs are of such an equal quality that few would agree with me. In Megaloman, tha band has asked from Kenny Powell (Omen) to write the guitars, and this is quite obvious as the song seems to have come out of Battle Cry or Warning of Danger. The closing track is Berzerker, a mid-tempo epic killer that reminds me songs like "Helicon" or "The Ninth Wave" from Manilla Road.

Ultimately I would say that this is probably the most complete Greek traditional heavy metal album of all times. Battleroar are the leaders of the uprising Greek epic metal scene and they have proved it with this release. Fans of traditional heavy and epic bands will mostly appreciate it. Hail!